Vehicle Prices (Please read before you assume it's to lower them)
Okay... let me start off by saying I agree with the price changes and I completely understand why. I really do. I get it. That being said... however, what I don't get is the way they're priced. Now, with the image directly below, is the best way, in my honest opinion to making economy, an economy. Progressive pricing. Pretend that "300" starting point is actually "$600,000" or even "$500,000".
That's how it should look. With vehicles starting off gradually. I mean no disrespect when I say this next part, but this whole made up tier system that we have now is not much of a tier system at all. Should a Nash Classic be the same price as say an Issi Sport? Hell no. They're completely different and in my opinion, completely classed different. Yet, they're the same high price tag. Makes zero sense. Now this next photo (Yes, it was done in paint because I'm a child when it comes to art and I know it sucks but bare with me.) is a graph of how the vehicles currently sit. To me, it sits in price tags. Not tiers.
You got the number of vehicles on the bottom, now of course there's no exact numbering because, well, I'm too lazy to take days to count it. But, the RED BAR is the majority of vehicles I have seen where with very minimum mark up, you're going to be paying a little over $822,000 off a shop floor. And that's to make whatever dealership you're buying from very minimalistic profits. From an $820,000 vehicle the dealership is making 1/40th of the price, roughly. The GREEN BAR represents vehicles you'll likely be spending just over $937,000 with the same amount of markup cost. The BLUE BAR with the same markup is just a little over $1,051,000. The YELLOW BARS follow a spread of already million+ dollar vehicles that aren't many. Most vehicles fall in the Red, green and blue bars.
Now, the point of all this isn't to get you to change your mind about lowering the prices. That's not it at all. The most common thing I am likely going to see as a response to all this is "You can always increase the markup." being as dealerships can price their vehicles anyway they want. But then there comes the point of if you mark it too high you'll never sell it. Then at that point what's the point in even having a dealership? The point of having a dealership is for the RP experience of selling vehicles and making money. Dealership owners quite literally have to do public jobs to make money if they're not selling cars. Which isn't exactly ALL the time.
As you can see by my crudely drawn graph there, these vehicles aren't in a "Tier system". Unless that Tier System only consists of 4 tiers. Then yeah, I could say it's in a tier system. This is a price tag system based of vehicles you've selected as a said tier. Tier 1 is Red bar. Tier 2 is Green Bar. Tier 3 is blue bar etc. They are FLAT PRICES. There's no variation of pricing from 1 "Tier" to the next. Tier 1 is this price, tier 2 is this price. There's nothing in between. It's unrealistic. It makes absolutely zero sense based on vehicle performance and an ACTUAL tier system. You're not gonna sit there and be like "Oh hey, yeah, an Issi Sport is the same Tier as a Ford Raptor"... no, no it's not. Yet they're both the same price.
Another reasoning behind the prices could be the fact you wanna hide a vehicle that may perform better than others that is highly sought after, so that not everyone owns one. Cool. Let's talk about that. If we actually sat down and gave every single car a tier that's fair and a price tag to match, only then can you say "Well, a lot of people enjoy this car due to this and that and this performance" so on and so forth. Then you say "Okay, well, let's increase the price. We have like 25 other cars that are of various prices that are cheaper that are near the same tier in performance." thus effectively hiding the vehicle better, forcing the whole "We want you to take the time to get the vehicle(s) you want rather than being able to mass buy." as in before 1.0. I get that.
Someone, no matter what, will take all the time it requires to get the vehicle they want. It's inevitable. All we can, rather should, do, is give them more options to try to persuade them into giving that up by buying one of the 25 or so vehicles before it by pricing them differently. It either works or it doesn't. But by grouping vehicles into price tags... there's nothing. You got $850k? Cool, here's a list of the vehicles that can be bought for that. I dunno, maybe I just like the idea of realizing that the amount of money you have just isn't quite enough when you spot a different car you may like more. Rather, you REALLY wanted an Issi Sport, but look, you think the the Ford Raptor is cooler. No biggy. You still got enough.
Possible solution, based off my own opinion. Disregard this entire thing and get rid of dealerships altogether. At this point there's no point in having them. Unless you wanna gouge people on already super expensive vehicles.
Another possible solution, I may be biased on this one, give dealerships a clock in spot to make basic wages like every other player owned businesses or the only other, would be IRL, commission based job... D8.
Last possible solution I can think of right now... recruit more people to implement an actual tier to price system like we had pre-1.0. I volunteer as tribute.
Let me leave this off with that I am not making a big deal about this for no reason. I REALLY enjoy flying into this city and it is the ONLY city I fly into. Thus I am passionate about wanting to help and I feel like I am trying to help by bringing this up. This is not coming from a callous oversight of the changes that have recently swept through the city. I am in the city, I am talking to the citizens, I am listening. Information and observation is my greatest strengths while also being influenced by my own opinions... let me know what you guys think.
We agree and the prices will be changed along with a major overhaul on handling.
https://github.com/Senlar/ncrp_issues/issues/3